


Ner Neshama

by elumish



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Jewish Character, Post-Battle of New York (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 15:57:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6992398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t put this out, okay? Or I’m actually going to donate you to a community college. A shitty community college. Where they only hire teachers who can’t be hired anywhere else.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ner Neshama

**Author's Note:**

> This has more to do with my own complicated relationship with Judaism than anything else. I don't know. This is a thing.

The alarm goes off at midnight, and Tony stops what he’s doing to pull a candle out of one of his cabinets. DUM-E follows him because of course drunk sleep-deprived college Tony made an AI good enough to not only recognize things that are on fire but to recognize things that may soon be on fire, and Tony lets him follow, because he supposes this is a day when he’s supposed to be nice.

He sets it on an empty table space, cleared of and away from anything that could possibly blow up, because that would be bad. DUM-E stops next to him, whirring softly, and Tony puts a hand on its top. “Don’t put this out, okay? Or I’m actually going to donate you to a community college. A shitty community college. Where they only hire teachers who can’t be hired anywhere else.”

DUM-E whirs at him even louder, and JARVIS says, “I will ensure that he does not put out your candle, sir.”

“Thanks, J.” Tony rubs his mouth, feeling a couple more days’ worth of stubble than he usually aims for. He’s not actually sure the last time he slept, but he’s pretty positive he ate a banana a couple hours earlier. Less than ten.

He’s not actually sure if he’s doing this right. He spent the week after his parents’ death drunk out of his mind, and even if he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have known what to do, and there’s no way Obie would have let him. Because his father “didn’t want to see that shit” and his mother, well, she changed her name to Maria Carbonell because being Moriah Cohen didn’t make for an easy life at that time. He couldn’t really blame her.

He had seen her light a yahrzeit candle for her father once, when Howard was away on business with Obie. He had been seven or so and had asked her what she was doing, and she had given him a sad look and said, “This is how I remember him.”

He had a confirmation when he was 13, when his father had still been deciding whether it was best for business to be a good Catholic, a good Protestant, or just vaguely religious enough that nobody could accuse him of being a Communist. The ceremony had felt itchy on his skin, like he was wearing a shirt that was too tight. Sometimes he thinks that that’s when he learned how to lie, because he didn’t believe a word he was saying, but he managed to smile through it anyway.

In a few hours, outside, there’s going to be a celebration for the anniversary of the invasion. Celebrating winning, celebrating surviving, and he’s in New York City because he’s a masochist. It seems ridiculous, the whole thing, and it’s not like he’s not one for celebrating, but the only reason they even had a chance was because he build a monument to his own ego because he didn’t want to be stuck in the mansion that looks like a mausoleum every time he came to New York.

Captain Icicle is probably going to be marching there, all studly and American and blond, his father’s greatest creation, and maybe he shouldn’t hate the guy who single-handedly stopped the one of the worst parts of the Nazis and sacrificed himself in the process, but—

But his father loved Cap more than anyone else, and he’s the pinnacle of what his mother tore herself apart trying to turn herself into. And he knows he should just give up and like him, because his mother would have loved Cap too, and because if his mother had been in Germany or Poland, Cap would have saved her.

But all Tony can see when he looks at Cap is a playing card smeared with blood being tossed across a table.

Pressing lips together, Tony picks up a matchbook and strikes a match, lowering it down to the candle. Beside him, DUM-E beeps sadly. “I light this candle to bring peace to the soul of Phil _ben_ Robert.”

And then he gets back to work.

**Author's Note:**

> If I got something wrong, sorry. I know it's supposed to be on the anniversary in the Hebrew calendar, but Tony wouldn't necessarily know that.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Yortsayt Likht](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7058560) by [elumish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish)




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